NOW THAT PRESIDENT PRESIDENT BUHARI HAS REJIGGED THE SECURITY APPARATUS, WHAT’S NEXT? The

 

Femi Ojo 

The President, Mr Mohammed Buhari and his team have done virtually everything they thought they should do on curbing the growing high insecurity in Nigeria and it seems yet all is not well. Initially, the President foot- dragged on retiring the ex- military chiefs and bring in new ones on board to fight the growing state of insecurity in Nigeria. But finally, all thanks to the unconquerable voice of reasons that never allowed Mr. President to breathe and   finally our man at Aso Rock did the needful- showed the old security chiefs the way out!   And of recent, President Buhari not seems to be satisfied with the way banditry activities are growing in Nigeria, pulled a fast one on the ‘oga patapata’ in police uniform, after 2 months extension of the immediate past Inspector General of police, Mr. Mohammed Abubakar Adamu and with no significant improvement in his service delivery on internal security, showed Mr. Abubakar the exit door off-guard.

For Buhari’s ardent supporters especially those who believe that the President has performed well on the state of security in Nigeria, ‘Sai Baba’ has never left any stone unturned. The President according to them has ensured that the security forces are well equipped with sophisticated arms and ammunition, well-motivated and guaranteed solid political will by the Presidency to combat the unfortunate act of kidnapping, banditry, terrorism and other activities that are related to insecurity in Nigeria. Well, this is what I call a ‘political pretense of the highest order propaganda against the stack reality in our polity. This will be given better explanation later just follow me.

The argument that the President’s scorecard is high in the area of security in Nigeria is one that arguably will attract polemics anytime, anyday, and anywhere. But frankly, for a country that needs an urgent economic reengineering from the current gloomy situation such as rising inflation, the dwindling value of the naira, frightening unemployment, and a nation that is still the world’s poverty capital, is our nation not a breeding ground for insecurity? Currently, there is a debate on how broke financially our nation is with rising debts running into trillions of naira and we have all been advised to brace up for the coming days.

Today the residents of Zamfara, Kaduna, Borno, Yobe, Niger, Kastina, Adamawa, and coming down to the southern part of the country, we have also witnessed the ugly manifestations of increasing banditry, kidnapping, criminal activities and most high-ways in this axis have also become what a writer described as ‘road to death’ due to the alarming level of the kidnapping of travelers and killing of innocent citizens by criminal elements. To worsen this unfortunate situation is that police stations and uniform men have equally suffered and been sent to untimely death. The citadel of learning especially in some northern states has been turned into two theatres of kidnapping activities with many secondary school students carted away by the local terrorists.

To be candid our security forces are capable and given all necessary support and cooperation by all, our gentlemen officers at the front burner of the banditry and terrorists attacks are more than capable and thus we should commend them for their gallantry and such sacrificial jobs they are doing. However, to complement their noble sacrifices, it is high time our political class sits down and faces the reality that Nigeria urgently needs an economic reengineering that can translate to her citizens living in good quality of life, equitable distribution of income, and good standard of living. That too should be seen as part of the strategy to combat the current state of insecurity in our polity. Besides this, winning the war against banditry, terrorism, kidnapping, sectionalism and other socio-economic vices needs a deep intelligence network rather than the belief that the only activation of plutonic military arsenals on the unfortunate elements, who have brought us to this abysmal state is the only solution otherwise the future of the country and her growing youth population is at stake.

Femi Ojo is a Media Communications professional, writer, blogger, and serial entrepreneur based in Lagos, Nigeria.